


Halfway There

by 24framesofdreaming



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Loneliness, Memories, Mild Language, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3679167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24framesofdreaming/pseuds/24framesofdreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec has his final nightmare about Sandbrook. Set immediately after the conclusion of Season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halfway There

**Author's Note:**

> My very first fic on Ao3 - or anywhere for that matter. Eek!  
> Written because I worry too much about the wonderful D.I. Grumpypants.  
> Comments and constructive criticism are very much appreciated!

Halfway There  
by Amy

"Where to then, sir?"

 

"Sir? Where are you going, then?"

The voice broke his reverie. "Right," he muttered.  
He really hadn't thought this whole thing through.

"Err, Lincoln, city centre. I'll get the address." He closed the door and the cab pulled away.  
"No problem, sir. Long way to go yet. You'll have a long night of it."  
Oh god, let there be no chitchat, please. He sighed and squinted out the window. Broadchurch’s High Street slipped past through the warm dusk. The post shop, now closed up. His heart sank a little lower. The Echo. The Trader's Hotel. Before the town limits could pass by, he looked away. 

He pulled out his mobile and found Tess' number.  
_Leaving Broadchurch now. Finished everything up this morning. Any chance of sleeping in the spare room when I get there?_  
It buzzed almost immediately; she had attached the address. _Yes. Key is under the mat. Don't wake us._

He leaned back and for the next few hours tried, and failed, to doze off.

Maybe this was all a mistake. He'd packed up in a hurry, before he could allow himself to contemplate staying. There was nothing in Broadchurch for him now, and even the constant presence by his side, a curly-headed figure in a dumpy orange anorak, had other things to do now. 

As the motorway lights flicked by, marking the hours in silent rhythms, he thought about her. Could she ever be happy again? If anyone had a chance, it was probably her. Would she be able to reconstruct a life, back in that house filled with memories; and had he made a mistake, leaving her alone when Joe was walking the streets a free man? The thought made his stomach clench. He took out his mobile and flicked through his contacts to her number. His thumb poised over it, and he could practically hear her defensive, wounded rebuff. He put the phone back in his pocket.

It was nearing midnight when he tapped the cabbie on the shoulder and told him to take a detour. They were still hours away, and he just couldn't go any further. His head was heavy, his eyes stung and blurred, and there was a spreading ache in his chest that, for once, had nothing to do with his now-steady heart. The cab pulled up outside a bland hotel and he paid the driver, got out slowly, and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, not quite sure what he was doing. His limbs felt like lead, and there was a mounting pressure behind his temples. 

He shuffled inside and the tired staff member walked over from the bar to take his credit card and hand him a key. As he trudged upstairs to a plain, polite room and set down his bags, loosened his tie and splashed cold water on his face, he began to think.

Since Ricky had confessed in the early hours of yesterday morning and the last bolt had slammed shut on Pippa's killers, everything had been hazy. He didn't know what he had expected the aftermath to be like, simply because he had never thought about it at all. 

Ever since that nightmarish day eighteen months ago when he'd picked up the phone to hear Tess, telling him that the car had been broken into - the airless, blank moment when his heart had faltered for the first time as he realised he would never be able to make it right - since then his whole existence had had one fierce, unremitting goal. It thrummed in his head when he spent late nights staring at the computer screen and poring over case files he'd read a hundred times. It tapped on the window pane at night with small, ghastly fingers and shadowed him in his dreams. It looked out at him with innocent, accusing eyes whenever he opened his wallet, which was many times a day and the last thing he did each night and the first thing again the next morning. 

And now that was all gone; he'd known as soon as he drifted into consciousness in that hospital room that it was inevitable, that he was nearly there. And now there was an empty space in his wallet and a corresponding vacancy in his chest - little victory or satisfaction, yet, just a hole. 

He tried not to remember how Ellie had sensed that while they sat at the edge of the marina this morning; he hoped she hadn’t noticed how hard it was to reply to her without losing his voice entirely, without finally crumbling right there in front of her. Her quiet understanding always steadied him, but her acknowledgment of his raw isolation, like a well-meaning hand placed on a bleeding gash, was unbearable. Perhaps a similar wound was why she had, in her turn, refused a hug; if so, he understood.

He took his mobile out of his jacket pocket again and sat on the edge of the bed, turning it over slowly in his hands. He selected her name from the contacts and tapped out a brief message. _I'm leaving my phone on. Call me any time._ He quickly hit send before he had a chance to reconsider. Suddenly he realised it was late at night, and swore under his breath as he imagined the message waking her. _Wanker._

He should have checked her house before he left. Mentally, he scanned its layout - the exits, the windows. The back door to the garden needed a chain lock added. And she needed to start closing the gate at night. They should have a dog, actually. A breed that would bark at strangers. Yes, as if she didn't have enough to deal with right now. An image rose to mind of him standing on her doorstep, holding a furry, smelly, yapping wee thing, and the incredulous fury on her face when she opened the door. He wheezed out a rusty laugh, the sound startling him in the quiet. Perhaps not, then. 

He took off his glasses and lay back, rubbing his eyes, and stared at the blurry ceiling. He should have just kept going - there was no way he was going to sleep. He was just going to lie here, thinking about the days looming ahead. About finding a job, and a new reason to get up in the morning; about negotiating a new relationship with Daisy. God, he knew nothing about teenagers. Whether they wanted you to Facebook them or not; how to act around their friends... When he found a flat it would need to have a second bedroom. He could get it painted and redecorated for her. Had she grown out of pale pink and butterflies yet? Probably. He’d have to learn to cook again... 

He fell asleep quite suddenly then, fully clothed and with his shoes still on. 

Some time later, he was swimming underwater, deep in the dark. A great weight seemed to be fastened around his neck, pulling him into the crushing blackness. Blind eyes blinking frantically, lungs bursting, he clawed at his throat. The rope cut into his skin; he cried out, a horrible, bubbling sound; burning salt flooded his lungs and then his mind went dark. After a while he seemed to be floating, weightless. This went on for some time. Perhaps he was dead now. Something small and cold, hanging from a thin chain, was knotted in his hand, and as his limp body broke the surface he felt it slip from his fingers and vanish down into the depths.

His eyes wrenched open and he saw the hotel room, unsentimental and dim, with orange slits of light scoring the darkness and the tangled bedspread around him. His shirt was damp with sweat, his rapid breathing obscenely loud in the soft silence. He slid off the bed and groped for his overcoat on the chair. As he burst out of the hotel doors and hurried along the sidewalk and down a narrow alley, he took deep, steadying breaths of night air. There was something missing in it - the keen tang of salt. How he'd hated that smell on his long nighttime walks along the foreshore. Now there was only the metallic bite of city fumes. He walked quickly, blindly - something was rising in his chest and choking off his breath again. 

Across a narrow street the alley opened suddenly on to a small park, where a fountain bubbled cheerfully in the city-night hush. He sat down on a bench and looked at the sprays of water leaping through the dark. Staring down at his shaking hands, he tried to fight off this thing that had its hands around his throat, squeezing off his breath. He closed his eyes and heard his own ragged breathing, the incessant tinkle of waterdrops rushing, dripping, and he tasted bitter river water, felt the lifeless, sodden weight in his arms again, the weight of his time, and days lost, and laughters never heard; the crushing weight of his helpless failure and of a hard-won victory too late. 

He heard a strange sound, strangled out through gritted teeth, and he realised it was his own. The sobs broke up and past his lips, viciously, with no permission or rhythm, and for the first time he let them have their way. He sat for a long time, trying to breathe through the ragged sobs, while the tears trickled down through his beard and dripped off his chin. 

Little by little the terrifying hands that grasped his throat slackened their hold, and the aching weight around his heart loosened. After a while he sat with his head in his hands, breathing quietly, letting the night breeze dry his face and listening to his even heartbeat thumping in his aching head. Utter peace, exhaustive and hypnotic, was stealing over him, and he only wanted to sleep, to sleep for such a long time. He shuffled slowly back to his room, slipped into bed and fell, past all dreaming, into the welcome dark.

When he woke, full daylight was seeping around the curtain edges. He lay quietly, dimly aware that something was new, and then remembered.  
It was done. It was really done. 

And Ellie. He grabbed his mobile - had he missed a call? There was a text, sent at 3:31 a.m.

_Have a safe trip._

And then another one, sent a few minutes later:

_Fred asks if you’re coming back._

His thumb brushed over the letters and something warm stole through his chest. He lay there for a few minutes, re-reading it.

It was time to go. He took a shower, still surprised that the hot water combined with the effort of standing no longer made him dizzy. When he stepped out of the shower and caught sight of himself in the mirror, for once the stranger there looked back at him with steady eyes. The man he’d seen in the cab window last night was dishevelled and needed a haircut. The beard could do with a proper trim, but he might keep it. He tied his tie carefully, and found a hairbrush in the depths of his bag.

Out on the bright sidewalk, he hailed a cab, threw in his bags and got inside, and as he opened his wallet to check for cash, he noticed the empty space in the left pocket. In a while he should ask Daisy for a photo of her that would fit there. Until then, it could stay empty. He looked out the window at morning streets teeming with life, and glanced at his watch. 

He might be there soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve decided for the purpose of the fic - in the absence of any solid information - that Tess and Daisy live in Lincoln and that Sandbrook is relatively close to there.


End file.
